Intended Stalemate? – Moon of Alabama

July 8, 2006

Intended Stalemate?

Via the Federation of American Scientists’ Secrecy News we get pointed to a report (PDF) by Gen. (Ret.) Barry R. McCaffrey about his recent visit to Guantanamo.

McCaffrey lauds today’s Guantanamo as the "most professional, firm, humane and carefully supervised confinement operation", not recognizing the absurdity of stuff like this:

Detainees receive 4200 calories a day with 53 individually prepared special diet meals. Four different menus and three meals a day are offered. Halal and cultural dietary requirements are supported. Refreshments are served in the recreation areas. All Detainees gain weight (average 18 ½ lbs) during custody. (Detainees on hunger strikes have gained an average of 20 lbs since going on strike.)

To feed 4,200 calories to POW’s not doing really, really hard work, but sitting in a prison is definitely not healthy. And don´t get me going on the humanity of overfeeding hungerstrikers by force.

McCaffrey concedes that the situation has been much worse and he puts the blame away from those in uniform:

During the first 18 months of the war on terror there were widespread, systematic abuses of detainees under US control in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. Some were murdered and hundreds tortured or abused.
[…]

Most of these abuses were the product of Pentagon policy directives that were a clear departure from our former commitment to the rule of law [..]

Some of the US military abuses of detainees were a result of grossly inadequate DOD deployed combat and support forces to control the combat situation. In other cases, reserve military forces were called up by DOD too late to receive the training and equipment required for the missions they were assigned. Finally, there was widespread US political and military horror at the unexpected (by DOD) level of casualties from a rapidly growing and violent insurrection in Iraq [..] Although some low level officers, NCOs’, and soldiers have been administratively punished or prosecuted—the public denial of wrong-doing by DOD has created a widespread belief in the world community that the U.S. has unilaterally walked away from Federal and international treaty restrictions on torture.

Nice try General. But the problem was/is not only DOD’s policy. In Abu Graibh there were orders given by officers, in Haditha and elsewhere there were the cover ups that are part of the crimes. Even professionals suspect a recent one in Hamandiya. These cover ups were certainly done by officers, not by some civilian DOD policy wonks.

The General thinks the legal situation in Guantanamo is a heap of dirty cloth laundry. (It was such a nice place to do illegal stuff before 2001.) He has a solution but doubts its implementation:

The only good solution would be to convince an international body to accept legal jurisdiction of the whole Guantanamo operation. We would provide and pay for the detention vehicle—the international legal system would accept jurisdiction. Not likely.

So he opts for the pragmatic detergent:

We need to rapidly weed out as many detainees as possible and return them to their host nation with an evidence package as complete as we can produce. We can probably dump 2/3 of the detainees in the next 24 months. Many we will encounter again armed with an AK47 on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. They will join the 120,000 + fighters we now contend with in those places of combat. It may be cheaper and cleaner to kill them in combat then sit on them for the next 15 years.

But why wait 24 month? Any further detention will increase the likelihood that the innocent people will be more hostile when freed. Why not free them today?

Aside from Guantanamo, the number McCaffrey is giving here is really interesting.

If there are 120,000+ defending against U.S. occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than double the last estimate I noticed, the military 3:1 rule of thumb requires some 360,000+ to successfully attack these forces. Neither in Iraq nor in Afghanistan the U.S. is even planing for such a troop level.

Given that, is there any chance for the current stalemate to change into something else?

Is an indefinite stalemate intended?

Posted by b on July 8, 2006 at 14:48 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Psychiatrist and former CIA case officer Marc Sageman has some very useful observations on what draws disaffected young men into Islamist terror organizations.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 8 2006 20:00 utc | 1

Uncca- what an excellent find. (and, yes, I do read links from you all the time, thank you again.)
Eighty percent were, in some way, totally excluded from the society they lived in. Sixty-eight percent either had preexisting friendships with people already in the jihad or were part of a group of friends who collectively joined the jihad together: this is typical of the Hamburg group that did 9- 11, the Montreal group that included Ahmed Ressam, the millennial bomber. Another 20 percent had close family bonds to the jihad. The Khadr family from Toronto is typical: the father, Ahmed Saeed Khadr, who had a computer engineering degree from Ottawa and was killed in Pakistan in October 2003, got his five sons involved: all of them trained in al Qaeda camps and one has been held for killing a U.S. medic. Their mother is involved in financing the group.
So between the two, you have 88 percent with friendship/family bonds to the jihad; the rest are usually disciples of Bashir and Sungkar. But that’s not the whole story. They also seem to have clustered around ten mosques worldwide that generated about 50 percent of my sample. If you add the two institutions in Indonesia, twelve institutions generated 60 percent of my sample. So, you’re talking about a very select, small group of people. This is not as widespread as people think.
So what’s in common? There’s really no profile, just similar trajectories to joining the jihad and that most of these men were upwardly and geographically mobile. Because they were the best and brightest, they were sent abroad to study. They came from moderately religious, caring, middle-class families. They’re skilled in computer technology. They spoke three, four, five, six languages. Most Americans don’t know Arabic; these men know two or three Western languages: German, French, English.
When they became homesick, they did what anyone would and tried to congregate with people like themselves, whom they would find at mosques. So they drifted towards the mosque, not because they were religious, but because they were seeking friends. They moved in together in apartments, in order to share the rent and also to eat together – they were mostly halal, those who observed the Muslim dietary laws, similar in some respects to the kosher laws of Judaism. Some argue that such laws help to bind a group together since observing them is something very difficult and more easily done in a group. A micro-culture develops that strengthens and absorbs the participants as a unit. This is a halal theory of terrorism, if you like.
…Indeed, there are not that many terrorists in America. There have never been any sleeper cells. All the terrorists are fairly obvious. The FBI cases we see in the press tend to unravel. The Detroit group has been exonerated, and the prosecutor is now being prosecuted for malfeasance on the planted evidence. He allegedly knew exculpatory facts that he did not present to the defense. The only sleeper America has ever had in a century was Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel, who was arrested in the late 1950s and exchanged for Gary Powers, the U2 pilot. Eastern European countries did send sleepers to this country, men fully trained who “go to sleep”—lead normal lives—and then are activated to become fully operational. But they all became Americans.
In order to really sustain your motivation to do terrorism, you need the reinforcement of group dynamics. You need reinforcement from your family, your friends. This social movement was dependent on volunteers, and there are huge gaps worldwide on those volunteers. One of the gaps is the United States. This is one of two reasons we have not had a major terrorist operation in the United States since 9/11. The other is that we are far more vigilant. We have actually made coming to the U.S. far more difficult for potential terrorists since 2001.
This man would seem to know more about terrorism than any current office-holding Republican. CNN, etc, should put him on the talking head shows to help Americans get a little perspective on those who are using the politics of fear to loot the treasury and destroy the middle class (and thus democracy) and call it patriotism.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 8 2006 20:44 utc | 2

Seems like it is impossible for three Gitmo detainees to commit suicide simultaenously

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 8 2006 23:30 utc | 3

Thanks B. I very much enjoy–and learn from–your analyses. And Uncle $cam on the ball, finding the new connections. Thanks.

Posted by: Argh | Jul 8 2006 23:44 utc | 4

Given that, is there any chance for the current stalemate to change into something else? Is an indefinite stalemate intended?
yes and yes. it’s a stalemate and it is intended to be a bloodier more violent stalemate. i’ve been reading the “Tentative Manual for Countering Irregular Threats: An Updated Approach to Counterinsurgency Operations uncle linked to the other day, i recommend, an excellent read. the ‘ kicking the anthill’ to asses as a ‘learning activity,’ the process can be viewed as a perpetual design, learn, redesign activity..’,”one of the main weapons of anti insugents is to find and magnify internal differences” , ‘perception more important than reality….” just loaded w/insight about how to fight small wars. basically an infomercial in how to make an occupation.
the push to invade iran is the obvious priority and this is what the stalemate will culminate into.i get the feeling all these little pests like gitmo, now iraq, the basic irritant is it messes w/the perceptions. as long as we can slide along, and the situation keeps getting worse we will never have to leave. the recent shite targets i read a balancing act for we have to divide the shites before the iran invasion, this could be in my mind, but i did read it somewhere.
so yes, no plans to leave, the stalemate cannot go on w/escalation because if things became calm there would be more pressure to leave.

Posted by: annie | Jul 9 2006 0:18 utc | 5

Ding, ding, ding. Bravo!
You win the prize of best comments in a thread thus far annie; ‘great minds think alike’ and all that…
Also, I meant to post this (see below) on friday’s freestyleforall here at da bar, but have been sicker than a dog w/ norovirus, family Caliciviridae, aka Stomach flu to which had me laying in the bathroom floor A)because it was a cool spot to my fevered body, B)because I didn’t have the strength to make it from the bedroom to the bathroom 22 times yesterday w/out shitting myself… it has not been a fun filled two days.
My forever hypervigalent symptoms of paranoia wondered if missoula (where I live) wouldn’t be the ultimate test client and ground environment for bioweapon tests on controlled subjects.
It’s funny the things you think about while helplessly laying naked in the floor shivering and feeling like a death corpse as human waste is projectile escaping from both ends of your body. Gross I know. It was a lesson however gross, on full submission and surrender of one’s cartoon carcass. And further, it didn’t help knowing that here locally, we have in progress a demon MIC (Military Indus Complex) bio-“defence” level 4 compound being built here in the bitterroot valley.
Leonard Cohen and sonny Rollins
Cheers..

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 9 2006 1:13 utc | 6

Double shot on Uncles link. The administration must surely be aware of such analysis — being from the CIA — and taken heed of it, and saw immediatly the threat that such analysis would pose. Hense, the supression of such information within the agency. If such an overview were to reach a wide audience, the shadow amplification of the Jihadi Islamofacist by the administration would be seen for what many here have always suspected — a grotesquely over inflated enemy used to justify foreign and domestic exploitation. And looks like another blown opportunity by the democrats, to jump on the anti-terrorism bandwagon — and try to sit to the right of bush at that. Instead of trying to redefine the threat itself, both as a matter of truth telling which at the same time, would be useful in deflating the threat used by bush (national security) to make them look weak. Oh well.

Posted by: anna missed | Jul 9 2006 4:46 utc | 7

After three years of occupation, now finally the U.S. forces are starting to prosecute the war crimes. Such crimes did happen in the last three years too, but they were covered up.
So what happened? Remember back this spring, there were some 10 retired Generals standing up to call for Rumsfelds resignation. Maybe that was the initiator. Also Gen. Pace, Chief of Joint Chiefs of Staffs had public disagreements with Rumsfeld. The new Marine manuals Uncle linked to and annie above also demand openess and prosecution of anything that goes against a heart and mind strategy. Like the 1000 people getting shot at checkpoints per year while only 60 were later found to have been dangerous.
All this together seems to have induced a top down order to really go after all those crimes. The SOCUS decision will certainly emphasise this again. So we can expect MUCH more of this.
NYT: U.S. Military Braces for Flurry of Criminal Cases in Iraq

As investigators complete their work, military officials say, the total of American servicemen charged with capital crimes in the new cases could grow substantially, perhaps exceeding the total of at least 16 other marines and soldiers charged with murdering Iraqis throughout the first three years of the war.
Some military officials and experts say the new crop of cases appears to arise from a confluence of two factors: an increasingly chaotic and violent war with no clear end in sight, and a newly vigilant attitude among American commanders about civilian deaths.
…
At least five separate incidents involving the deaths of Iraqis are under investigation, setting off the greatest outcry against American military actions since the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
…
In April, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the No. 2 American commander in Iraq, issued an order that specified for the first time that American forces must investigate any use of force against Iraqis that resulted in death, injury or property damage greater than $10,000.

But those investigations doesn´t meen anything, if the prosecution doesn not follow through. And it will not do so.

“There’s going to be very little forensic evidence,” Mr. Gittins said. “Jury members who have served in Iraq know that it is pretty common for Iraqis to lie to Americans. Also, the military pays the relatives of civilians who are killed — so they have an incentive to lie.”
Some members of the military juries are likely to have served in Iraq, and are familiar with the chaotic atmosphere surrounding any decision to use force. “The presumption of innocence is going to reign supreme,” Mr. Gittins said.

Lying and greedy sandniggers those are. Our murderers must be innocent.

Posted by: b | Jul 9 2006 5:03 utc | 8

thank you uncle, i’m blushing. everyone here has really deepened my understanding of all things military. maybe it’s paying off. actually i probably wouldn’t have even answered if b hadn’t asked the questions and written such a thought provoking post and i hadn’t been up on the manual which i actually picked thru and took notes on. i haven’t finished it yet tho, homework…

Posted by: annie | Jul 9 2006 5:37 utc | 9

speaking of homework, how does one copy and paste from a pdf file? i have to copy word for word when i want to collect a section, i still type w/2 fingers

Posted by: annie | Jul 9 2006 5:39 utc | 10

the recent shite targets i read a balancing act for we have to divide the shites before the iran invasion… — anna
We’be been quietly fighting Sadr for some time now:
American attacks on Mehdi Army cause uproar among Shia
The US army in Iraq is evidently starting a new confrontation with the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, which now controls much of Baghdad. Its militiamen have grown in number over the last year as Shia civilians look for protection against Sunni assassins and death squads. “Muqtada is taking over the city,” said one Shia yesterday.
…The US army is masking the fact that it is increasingly at war with the Iraqi Shia militias by referring to both Sunni and Shia as insurgents. Thus, after the raid into al-Sadr City, the US military said in a statement: “The captured individual heads multiple insurgent cells in Baghdad whose main focus is to conduct attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces.” This conceals the fact that the US is fighting the Mehdi Army, which is controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr, whose party is an important part of the Iraqi government.
I haven’t seen any stories talking about us fighting SCIRI, which wants to divide Iraq.
The New Republic’s Spencer Ackerman called Sadr Iraq’s best hope for unity. Curious that we continue to see him as the greater threat.

Posted by: Vin Carreo | Jul 9 2006 5:48 utc | 11

how does one copy and paste from a pdf file?
There is a “T” in the top button toolbar in Acrobat (if there is none not use the menu: View->toolbars-> to activate the bar). Press that “T” button, mark the text and the use the right mouse button to “Copy to clipboard”.
—
Andrew J. Bacevich has a good OpEd in WaPo. What’s an Iraqi Life Worth?

“You have to understand the Arab mind,” one company commander told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. “The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face.” Far from representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book “Cobra II,” Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly comment from a senior officer: “The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I’m about to introduce them to it.”
Such crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations, speaks volumes. These characterizations, like the use of “gooks” during the Vietnam War, dehumanize the Iraqis and in doing so tacitly permit the otherwise impermissible. Thus, Abu Ghraib and Haditha — and too many regretted deaths, such as that of Nahiba Husayif Jassim.
As the war enters its fourth year, how many innocent Iraqis have died at American hands, not as a result of Haditha-like massacres but because of accidents and errors? The military doesn’t know and, until recently, has publicly professed no interest in knowing. Estimates range considerably, but the number almost certainly runs in the tens of thousands. Even granting the common antiwar bias of those who track the Iraqi death toll — and granting, too, that the insurgents have far more blood on their hands — there is no question that the number of Iraqi noncombatants killed by U.S. forces exceeds by an order of magnitude the number of U.S. troops killed in hostile action, which is now more than 2,000.
Who bears responsibility for these Iraqi deaths? The young soldiers pulling the triggers? The commanders who establish rules of engagement that privilege “force protection” over any obligation to protect innocent life? The intellectually bankrupt policymakers who sent U.S. forces into Iraq in the first place and now see no choice but to press on? The culture that, to put it mildly, has sought neither to understand nor to empathize with people in the Arab or Islamic worlds?
…
It’s not that we have no regard for Iraqi lives; it’s just that we have much less regard for them. The current reparations policy — the payment offered in those instances in which U.S. forces do own up to killing an Iraq civilian — makes the point. The insurance payout to the beneficiaries of an American soldier who dies in the line of duty is $400,000, while in the eyes of the U.S. government, a dead Iraqi civilian is reportedly worth up to $2,500 in condolence payments — about the price of a decent plasma-screen TV.
For all the talk of Iraq being a sovereign nation, foreign occupiers are the ones deciding what an Iraqi life is worth. And although President Bush has remarked in a different context that “every human life is a precious gift of matchless value,” our actions in Iraq continue to convey the impression that civilian lives aren’t worth all that much.

Posted by: b | Jul 9 2006 6:11 utc | 12

Poor us a tall one barkeep, I got a story to tell…
I haven’t watched television in over ten years –as an aside, my whole way of thinking has changed because of it– but every once in a while I catch the right –or in this case maybe wrong moment– and enter where one is on. Case in point, about the middle of 2003 I happened to interupt some friends by going by their home. The CBS evening news happen to be on at the time. Out of polite address, or prolly more like cultural habit that governs behavior, I was drawn into watching that particular evenings edition. I remember thinking how much dan rather(?) had aged. However, I was very quickly entranced and disgusted to the point of mental shutdown;they had thrown so many fear bombs at the audience it was overwhelming.
I left my friends house that night terribly disturbed by what had just taken place. My nervous system and brain was in complete adrenaline over dose. I exhibited classic signs of what I suspect was central nervous system toxicity. I remember thinking on reflection that they threw so much at you in such a short span of time, that one could not possibly process one story before being bombarded by the next even grimmer story.
It remined me of Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death : Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business and a citation from it in which Postman wrote, –paraphrasing– “..We live in a time when a news anchor/ talking head, can come on television and monotonously repeat ‘World War III has just begun, now here’s a word from Burger king’ all in the same sentence without skipping a beat.
I did recover from my tv hebee geebees, but recorded my residual effect days afterward like a scientist studying a tramatic event.
I watched the robot as T. leary use to say or more apt, the monkey mind as the Buddhist ‘s say. i.e., my reactions to the propagenda stimulation.
I related all that just to say this, I again had the misfortunate or auspicious –however one looks at these things– event happen again recently, only this time it wasn’t the evening news, it was a show entitled: Judge Judy court tv. While that prolly is humorous to some, I was again horrified to find the age of realtv had arrived. Not only did she remind me of a bitter old trout who needed to get laid, but I was appauled that this is how courtroom justice is metered out? How these shows dehumanizes not only the participants but also the watchers. I asked myself was this real? Is this a legit litigation? I was floored that A)anyone would embarrass themselves by having their dirty laundry displayed for public consumption and B)to learn that the virdict is real and C)that this is how the Black-Robed Judge Casts a Dark Shadow Over any form of judicial process. What a complete mockery of US jurisprudence.
I remember reading a sociological critique –forgive the references to American television for our non American lurkers and regulars–of the TV show ‘America’s Most Wanted’ and how these type shows, bastardize anything that even resembles duty, due process, moral rightness; equity, what have you. Later to learn, at least in the case of Honorable Judy Judy, that the participants are paid, even further humiliating themselves.
And the crux of my tale here, is we have been set up conditioned to dehumanise, discount, minimise, and neglect any form of human dignity worth or virtue. And as b’s #8 post shows, we are all the more willing to flaunt our Judge Judy Justice.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 9 2006 7:24 utc | 13

The Productive Power of Confessions of Cruelty.
The ideological work of narratives of extreme violence

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 9 2006 7:58 utc | 14

The edifice complex
How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 9 2006 8:01 utc | 15

thank you b for the instruction. i will try it in the morn when i am clear headed.
thanks for the link vin, i read that this morning. the article that came to mind while writing my earlier post was a different one regarding iran and the fear the US has of the mullah influence, that portion of shia would be inclined align w/iran and the MO would be to isolate them for loyalty purposes, this is very fuzzy. i’ll check my notes tomorrow see if i saves it.
uncle, you sound better than you did earlier, hope you are off the floor

Posted by: annie | Jul 9 2006 8:09 utc | 16

The edifice complex
How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 9 2006 8:10 utc | 17

Interesting analysis here…Lohmann’s “Vorocracy: 1: Iraq” I think I know where he’s headed with this. It’s money, but it’s also having comparatively more money. One way to do that is flush all the little people far enough down the drain that the adequate becomes the plenty and the excess becomes a ticket to divinity.
“The Defense Department budget last year was three-quarters of a trillion dollars. I guarantee you that when war becomes that profitable, there will be more of it.”
—Chalmers Johnson, 2005

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 10 2006 4:25 utc | 18

The 1994 Riegle Report

U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Gulf War
A Report of Chairman Donald W. Riegle, Jr. and Ranking Member Alfonse M. D’Amato of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with Respect to Export Administration
United States Senate, 103d Congress, 2d Session
May 25, 1994

I wish that every American could be informed of the specific contents of this 1994 report to Congress about the role our government played in providing WMD to Saddam’s Iraq during the 1980’s, following Saddam’s massacre of the Kurds. Knowing of this atrocity did not stop the Reagan administration from following through with this program.

From the report:
U.S. Exports of Biological Materials to Iraq
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs has oversight responsibility for the Export Administration Act. Pursuant to the Act, Committee staff contacted the U.S. Department of Commerce and requested information on the export of biological materials during the years prior to the Gulf War. After receiving this information, we contacted a principal supplier of these materials to determine what, if any, materials were exported to Iraq which might have contributed to an offensive or defensive biological warfare program. Records available from the supplier for the period from 1985 until the present show that during this time, pathogenic (meaning “disease producing”), toxigenic (meaning “poisonous”), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Records prior to 1985 were not available, according to the supplier. These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. According to the Department of Defense’s own Report to Congress on the Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, released in April 1992: “By the time of the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq had developed biological weapons. It’s advanced and aggressive biological warfare program was the most advanced in the Arab world… The program probably began late in the 1970’s and concentrated on the development of two agents, botulinum toxin and anthrax bacteria… Large scale production of these agents began in 1989 at four facilities in Baghdad. Delivery means for biological agents ranged from simple aerial bombs and artillery rockets to surface-to-surface missiles.”
Included in the approved sales are the following biological materials (which have been considered by various nations for use in war), with their associated disease symptoms:
Bacillus Anthracis: anthrax is a disease producing bacteria identified by the Department of Defense in The Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Contress, as being a major component in the Iraqi biological warfare program.
Anthrax is an often fatal infectious disease due to ingestion of spores. It begins abruptly with high fever, difficulty in breathing, and chest pain. The disease eventually results in septicemia (blood poisoning), and the mortality is high. Once septicemia is advanced, antibiotic therapy may prove useless, probably because the exotoxins remain, despite the death of the bacteria.
Clostridium Botulinum: A bacterial source of botulinum toxin, which causes vomiting, constipation, thirst, general weakness, headache, fever, dizziness, double vision, dilation of the pupils and paralysis of the muscles involving swallowing. It is often fatal.
Histoplasma Capsulatum: causes a disease superfically resembling tuberculosis that may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the liver and spleen, anemia, an influenza like illness and an acute inflammatory skin disease marked by tender red nodules, usually on the shins. Reactivated infection usually involves the lungs, the brain, spinal membranes, heart, peritoneum, and the adrenals.
Brucella Melitensis: a bacteria which can cause chronic fatique, loss of appetite, profuse sweating when at rest, pain in joints and muscles, insomnia, nausea, and damage to major organs.
Clostridium Perfringens: a highly toxic bateria which causes gas gangrene. The bacteria produce toxins that move along muscle bundles in the body killing cells and producing necrotic tissue that is then favorable for further growth of the bacteria itself. Eventually, these toxins and bacteria enter the bloodstream and cause a systemic illness.
In addition, several shipments of Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) and genetic materials, as well as human and bacterial DNA, were shipped directly to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.
The following is a detailed listing of biological materials, provided by the American Type Culture Collection, which were exported to agencies of the government of Iraq pursuant to the issueance of an export licensed by the U.S. Commerce Department:
Date : February 8, 1985
Sent To : Iraq Atomic Energy Agency
Materials Shipped:
Ustilago nuda (Jensen) Rostrup
Date : February 22, 1985
Sent To : Ministry of Higher Education
Materials Shipped:
Histoplasma capsulatum var. farciminosum (ATCC 32136)
Class III pathogen
Date : July 11, 1985
Sent To : Middle and Near East Regional A
Material Shipped:
Histoplasma capsulatum var. farciminosum (ATCC 32136)
Class III pathogen
Date : May 2, 1986
Sent To : Ministry of Higher Education
Materials Shipped:
1. Bacillus Anthracis Cohn (ATCC 10)
Batch # 08-20-82 (2 each)
Class III pathogen
2. Bacillus Subtilis (Ehrenberg) Cohn (ATCC 82)
Batch # 06-20-84 (2 each)
3. Clostridium botulinum Type A (ATCC 3502)
Batch # 07-07-81 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
4. Clostridium perfringens (Weillon and Zuber) Hauduroy, et al (ATCC 3624)
Batch # 10-85SV (2 each)
5. Bacillus subtilis (ATCC 6051)
Batch # 12-06-84 (2 each)
6. Francisella tularensis var. tularensis Olsufiev (ATCC 6223)
Batch # 05-14-79 (2 each)
Avirulent, suitable for preparations of diagnotic antigens
7. Clostridium tetani (ATCC 9441)
Batch # 03-84 (3 each)
Highly toxigenic
8. Clostridium botulinum Type E (ATCC 9564)
Batch # 03-02-79 (2 each)
Class III pathogen
9. Clostridium tetani (ATCC 10779)
Batch # 04-24-84S (3 each)
10. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 12916)
Batch #08-14-80 (2 each)
Agglutinating type 2
11. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 13124)
Batch #07-84SV (3 each)
Type A, alpha-toxigenic, produces lecithinase C.J. Appl.
12. Bacillus Anthracis (ATCC 14185)
Batch #01-14-80 (3 each)
G.G. Wright (Fort Detrick)
V770-NP1-R. Bovine Anthrax
Class III pathogen
13. Bacillus Anthracis (ATCC 14578)
Batch #01-06-78 (2 each)
Class III pathogen
14. Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 14581)
Batch #04-18-85 (2 each)
15. Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 14945)
Batch #06-21-81 (2 each)
16. Clostridium botulinum Type E (ATCC 17855)
Batch # 06-21-71
Class III pathogen
17. Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 19213)
Batch #3-84 (2 each)
18. Clostridium botulinum Type A (ATCC 19397)
Batch # 08-18-81 (2 each)
Class III pathogen
19. Brucella abortus Biotype 3 (ATCC 23450)
Batch # 08-02-84 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
20. Brucella abortus Biotype 9 (ATCC 23455)
Batch # 02-05-68 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
21. Brucella melitensis Biotype 1 (ATCC 23456)
Batch # 03-08-78 (2 each)
Class III pathogen
22. Brucella melitensis Biotype 3 (ATCC 23458)
Batch # 01-29-68 (2 each)
Class III pathogen
23. Clostribium botulinum Type A (ATCC 25763)
Batch # 8-83 (2 each)
Class III pathogen
24. Clostridium botulinum Type F (ATCC 35415)
Batch # 02-02-84 (2 each)
Class III pathogen
Date : August 31, 1987
Sent To : State Company for Drug Industries
Materials Shipped:
1. Saccharomyces cerevesiae (ATCC 2601)
Batch # 08-28-08 (1 each)
2. Salmonella choleraesuis subsp. choleraesuis Serotype typhi (ATCC 6539)
Batch # 06-86S (1 each)
3. Bacillus subtillus (ATCC 6633)
Batch # 10-85 (2 each)
4. Klebsiella pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae (ATCC 10031)
Batch # 08-13-80 (1 each)
5. Escherichia coli (ATCC 10536)
Batch # 04-09-80 (1 each)
6. Bacillus cereus (11778)
Batch #05-85SV (2 each)
7. Staphylococcus epidermidis (ATCC 12228)
Batch # 11-86s (1 each)
8. Bacillus pumilus (ATCC 14884)
Batch # 09-08-80 (2 each)
Date : July 11, 1988
Sent To : Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
Materials Shipped
1. Escherichia coli (ATCC 11303)
Batch # 04-875
Phase host
2. Cauliflower Mosaic Caulimovirus (ATCC 45031)
Batch # 06-14-85
Plant Virus
3. Plasmid in Agrobacterium Tumefaciens (ATCC 37349)
(Ti plasmid for co-cultivation with plant integration vectors in E. Coli)
Batch # 05-28-85
Date : April 26, 1988
Sent To: : Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
Materials Shipped:
1. Hulambda4x-8, clone: human hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase
(HPRT) Chromosome(s): X q26.1 (ATCC 57236) Phage vector
Suggest host: E coli
2. Hulambda14-8, clone: human hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase
(HPRT) Chromosome(s): X q26.1 (ATCC 57240) Phage vector
Suggested host: E coli
3. Hulambda15, clone: human hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase
(HPRT) Chromosome(s): X q26.1 (ATCC 57242) Phage vector
Suggested host: E. coli
Date : August 31, 1987
Sent To : Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
Materials Shipped:
1. Escherichia coli (ATCC 23846)
Batch # 07-29-83 (1 each)
2. Escherichia coli (ATCC 33694)
Batch # 05-87 (1 each)
Date : September 29, 1988
Sent To : Ministry of Trade
Materials Shipped:
1. Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 240)
Batch # 05-14-63 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
2. Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 938)
Batch # 1963 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
3. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 3629)
Batch # 10-23-85 (3 each)
4. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 8009)
Batch # 03-30-84 (3 each)
5. Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 8705)
Batch # 06-27-62 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
6. Brucella abortus (ATCC 9014)
Batch # 05-11-66 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
7. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 10388)
Batch # 06-01-73 (3 each)
8. Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 11966)
Batch #05-05-70 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
9. Clostridium botulinum Type A
Batch # 07-86 (3 each)
Class III pathogen
10. Bacillus cereus (ATCC 33018)
Batch # 04-83 (3 each)
11. Bacillus ceres (ATCC 33019)
Batch # 03-88 (3 each)
Date : January 31, 1989
Sent To : Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
Materials Shipped:
1. PHPT31, clone: human hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT)
Chromosome(s): X q26.1 (ATCC 57057)
2. Plambda500, clone: human hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase
pseudogene (HPRT) Chromosome(s): 5 p14-p13 (ATCC 57212)
Date : January 17, 1989
Sent To : Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
Materials Shipped:
1. Hulambda4x-8, clone: human hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase
(HPRT) Chromosomes(s): X q26.1 (ATCC 57237) Phage vector;
Suggested host: E. coli
2. Hulambda14, clone: human hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase
(HPRT) Chromosome(s): X q26.1 (ATCC 57540), Cloned from human lymphoblast, Phase vector
Suggested host: E. coli
3. Hulambda15, clone: human hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase
(HPRT) Chromosome(s): X q26.1 (ATCC 57241) Phage vector;
Suggested host: E. coli
Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control has compiled a listing of biological materials shipped to Iraq prior to the Gulf War. The listing covers the period from October 1, 1984 (when the CDC began keeping records) through October 13, 1993. The following materials with biological warfare significance were shipped to Iraq during this period.
Date : November 28, 1989
Sent To : University of Basrah, College of
Science, Department of Biology
Materials Shipped:
1. Enterococcus faecalis
2. Enterococcus faecium
3. Enterococcus avium
4. Enterococcus raffinosus
5. Enteroccus gallinarium
6. Enterococcus durans
7. Enteroccus hirae
8. Streptococcus bovis
(etiologic)
Date : April 21, 1986
Sent To : Officers City Al-Muthanna,
Quartret 710, Street 13, Close 69, House 28/I,
Baghdad, Iraq
Materials Shipped:
1. 1 vial botulinum toxoid
(non-infectious)
Date : March 10, 1986
Sent To : Officers City Al-Muthanna,
Quartret 710, Street 13, Close 69 House 28/I,
Baghdad, Iraq
Materials Shipped:
1. 1 vial botulinum toxoid #A2
(non-infectious)
Date : June 25, 1985
Sent To : University of Baghdad, College of
Medicine, Department of Microbiology
Materials Shipped:
1. 3 years cultures
(etiologic)
Candida sp.
Date : May 21, 1985
Sent To : Basrah, Iraq
Materials Shipped:
1. Lyophilized arbovirus seed
(etiologic)
2. West Nile Fever Virus
Date : April 26, 1985
Sent To : Minister of Health, Ministry of
Health, Baghdad, Iraq
Materials Shipped:
1. 8 vials antigen and antisera (r. rickettsii and r. typhi) to diagnose rickettsial infections (non-infectious)

Also see, United States exports of biological materials to Iraq
Compromising the credibility of international law
And would it be obtuse of me to ask where is all this stuff? Was it destroyed? If so is there documentation of it, if not…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 10 2006 4:50 utc | 19

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